Another day dawns upon the rickety barge that had been your home for countless others, marked by the few strands of daylight that manage to stream through smudgy glass portholes to either side of the cargo hold. You've spent almost a week packed in with what must be a hundred, maybe two hundred other refugees, all fleeing the Blight that is swallowing ever more of Ferelden by the day. Having bore witness to the Darkspawn hordes yourself, you can't exactly blame them; the majority of your company are not men or women of fighting shape, but widows and orphans, those too young or too old or too weak to defend themselves from the vile tides that threaten to blanket all of Thedas should the Wardens fail where Cailan had. But that wasn't your problem now. You had done your duty at Ostagar, served more than half your life away in the Circle. You were finally free, free from all of them, and you weren't about to let thoughts of what may happen ruin the reality of what is happening. A soft voice stirs you from any sour thoughts.
"We'll be arriving soon," The source is familiar to you. Elora had become your companion during the journey, not through any choice of your own, but by her own insistence. The two of you were among the only elves on the vessel, and if your brief taste of freedom from the Circle had taught you anything, it was that the rest of the world was not half so egalitarian as the confines of that blasted tower. When people looked on you with suspicion going forward, it wouldn't be because of your abilities, but because of the shape of your ears and the slightness of your build. It was for the best, Elora had reasoned, that the two of you stuck together. Elves needed to have a sense of solidarity to make it in a human world, and to top it off, she offered to introduce you to her brother once the two of you had made it to Kirkwall, who in turn would get the two of you into the alienage, where you'd have a better chance of finding permanent lodgings than the rest of Lowtown.
"The captain said he could see the cliffs when the morning fog cleared. It should only be another hour or so," She chirps, ever the optimist. Her upbeat demeanor had made suffering the squalor of the refugee vessel a little more tolerable during the journey, another reason to keep her around if nothing else, "Are you excited? I've heard some... interesting things, about Kirkwall. But I'm sure it's not all that bad. It can't be any worse than Ferelden right now."